The living age Volume 155

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 Excerpt: ... lying alone, who had given birth to twins--two little girls. The infants moved about restlessly by the mother's side, and she could not lift them up to her breasts. The woman saw me, understood that God had sent me for a soul, and said to me in tears, ' Angel of God! I have but just buried my husband, he was killed by a tree in the wood. I have no sister or aunt or countryman to bring up my orphans, don't take away my soul; let me myself give food and drink to the infants, and bring them up. The children cannot live without father and mother.' I listened to the mother, put one infant to her breast, laid the other in its mother's arms, and rose up on my wings to the Lord. I winged my way to the Lord, and said, ' I could not take away the souls from their parent. Their father was killed by a tree, their mother gave birth to twins, and prayed me not to take the soul away from her. "Let me give food and drink to the children, and bring them up," she said. "The infants cannot live without father and mother." I did not take a soul from the mother.' And the Lord said, 'Go, take a soul from the woman, and learn three words: learn what people have, and what they have not, and what makes people to live. When you have learnt this you will return to heaven.' 1 flew back to the earth and took the soul from the woman. "The infants fell from the breasts. The dead body rolled over on the bed, crushing one infant and putting out its foot. I rose up above the village, in order to take up the soul to God, when a gust of wind caught my wings, they dropped, and the soul went up to God alone, but 1 fell by the way to the earth." XI. Simon and Matrona understood now whom they had clothed and fed, and who had lived in their home. They wept for joy an...